The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in the present disclosure and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are used to indicate various status information by blinking or maintaining an on or off state. For example, LEDs are used to indicate data flow and/or link status for a communication link between devices in a network. A single LED can indicate that no communication link is established by remaining off, a link has been successfully established but no data is flowing by remaining on, and a link is established and data is flowing by blinking.
In some networks, packets or frames (e.g., Ethernet frames) include timing control information to allow for timing across various network components to be synchronized by having a time concept communicated across the network. For example, networks used for coordinated factory operations, or those synchronizing sound with video (e.g., audio/video bridging (AVB)) or with other audio channels, use such timing controls so that each device knows when to play the sound or when to move an actuator. However, drawbacks of LED link status indicators where such timing protocols are used include a loss of distinction between indications of normal data flow and those related to a protocol.